Since I was old enough to understand my sexuality I have always been simply dumbfounded by the fact that when a man and woman have sex they can generate life. I know…I know…you think I am being dramatic …all animals can do it and some sea animals do it by themselves. Notwithstanding these facts, I see myself differently than animals. I view human life as unique thus far in history and as a result, that little me can create life is overwhelming to me. I do not take it for granted and am ever so thankful for the ability to do so. I respect life and the creation of life like few other things in my world. This is not a condemnation about anything…just my own judgment about the beauty, the awesomeness, the wonder of human life.

Let us, for a moment, reflect on how friendships grow in intimacy. The more of ourselves we reveal to another, the more we develop intimacy. A close friend may intuit what I feel or desire, but if I am hesitant to express my feelings or desires to him or her, we have a problem of intimacy. The issue is one of trust and transparency. Intimacy requires growing transparency, I let go of some of my defenses in order to let the other see me as I am.

In human relationships we often add riders to our requests, but our purpose to make sure that the other does not feel coerced. Thus, I might want to spend some time with a friend; at the same time I do not want him to feel obliged to take the time. I want him to WANT to be with me. In other words, I’m not sure a) that my friend is free, and/or b) that he will be honest with me if he does not want to spend time right now, and/or c) that he wants to be with me as much as I want to be with him, and/or d) that I really want to be with him.

We can all recognize how convoluted communication can get under these circumstances. Friendship can suffer as a result. The same is true in our marriages. We think we have so much more intimacy in our marriages because sex is added to the mix. However, our communication can and often does get just as convoluted because we fail to grow in intimacy. Intimacy requires work, a commitment that each and every day rises to the occasion of being transparent, open, expressing your real feelings without defense or guilt or other layers of muck to cover your own insecurities. Then, after overcoming that hurdle, risking rejection, misunderstanding, and uncertainty from your partner. I say this must happen everyday because the day you don’t do it, a little bit of mistrust grows or a little bit of shame grows or a little bit of space grows between you and your partner and left unchecked for too long – and that could be not as long as you think – and suddenly one of you is somewhere else completely in your head, in your life, in your marriage.

This intimacy is necessary in conflict as well and we as facilitators and mediators try and bring that out because that is the only real way to deal with the conflict. Can you see that sometimes, on your own, you cannot reach into that well of honesty and transparency because of fear or the chance – sometimes the very real chance – of “losing” something you think you cannot lose. In a facilitated meeting, for example, we help the parties tap into the real expressions of needs so that the real needs are on the table for all involved. Once everyone knows what the real needs are – right there, naked and exposed – dynamics can change and people can relate to their own vulnerability because the other’s is right there exposed as well. It is a leavening agent and it balances the power in the room so that one party is not holding the cards anymore. All needs are valued and evaluated in terms of being met.

This is one way in which facilitation and mediation can bring about win/win situations and this is one reason why with litigation and adversarial tactics there are usually two losers.

Block quote taken from Discernment in Prayer Paying Attention to God by William A. Barry, SJ , This is a wonderful book taking you on a journey of really growing in intimacy in prayer. Too often people pray unconsciously. This book teaches conscious prayer and wakes you up to having a real relationship with God and not some abstract relationship based on concepts or theology. He helps you apply the concepts you know or dont know to a conscious relationship with God. Check it out.

Story that aired on ABC World News. It was very touching, and reminds us that you are never too old to dream. We all deserve dignity and happiness.

“There’s a lot more that we can do to say thank you to this generation, to appreciate this generation. Not only for their wisdom but for paving the way for all of us.”

Jeremy Bloom started the foundation in 2008. Now thanks to financial assistance from donors and corporate sponsors, he goes around fulfilling bucket lists, footing the bills for seniors with a lifelong dream.

I love Tammy Lenski – what can I say? She is bright, fun, innovative and knows her stuff about mediation and more. In an interesting site called Cafe Mediate, she and another favorite of mine, Diane Levin, and two other interesting mediators team up and discuss current issues mediators should be thinking about. I have really enjoyed Keeping Cool in Chaos (especially the part where Tammy relays a story of a lawyer at the mediation table basically trying to tell Tammy she does not know what she is doing! I haven’t been there yet but I know the experience is just around the corner for me)and What Makes a Great Mediator.

I love this line of work – really love it. I believe in it with my whole heart. Conflict is healthy and necessary not a bad word that should conjure up adversarial thoughts. I think more education about it is necessary for all of us in order to make the mind shift from a two sided dispute that requires rigorous representation on both sides to a dispute that is able to be worked out through facilitation. I was the aggressive litigator and I was pretty good at it, or so most of my clients said; however, I saw myself losing perspective on the value of human relationships and the necessity of them in order for us to experience happiness. Anyway…I babble on…listen to these people speak…

It is in the details of life that we can truly understand and see the gift, the good in, and beauty of the life we have. Everyday that we wake up and consciously take our first breath is the first thing we must be thankful for. It is the first time we must stop, look in our heart, and begin to analyze each moment from there. What am I doing today and how can I do it from the heart?

Each minute of every day must be analyzed not in your head as much as in your heart. There, in the heart, lies your voice of love that knows what to do in times of stress, threat, conflict, joy, anger, reward, and more. In every minute there is most likely some opportunity to be a better person by being thankful, by being of service to someone else, by using your gifts to reach out or in some way to bring joy to someone, to edify them, to share with them, to lighten their load, to show you care. Attending to each opportunity as viewed from the heart brings you a peace that sustains you even in times of extreme difficulty. Be kind to one another, compassionate and forgiving because in forgiving you will be forgiven. In condemning you will be condemned. You may not always succeed but if you are conscious of your choice – later that evening when you review your day and examine your conscience you will know where you have succeeded and where, perhaps, you can do better.

Staying conscious in the moment from the heart makes YOU ALIVE. It simultaneously makes you see how important you are yet it humbles you to know how easily angered and easily tempted you can be to wallow in self-pity, take things out on others, and do what you know is wrong. It is an amazing experience and it gives you the courage to look life in the eye and grab at it. It makes you want to get out of bed and see what life has in store for you that day. You stop thinking in terms of good or bad or what has to be done or what you have to do and you have the courage to live in the moment. When what you have to do comes up, you look in your heart for the right way to be. If that hard conversation has to occur, you look in your heart as to how to handle it. Their comes a strength and security when you stop worrying and spinning in your head and release yourself to your heart. It guides you and always knows the answer.

No, not everything is going to feel good. But feelings are not the appropriate judge of what is good or not good for you. You know that in your heart. In fact, your feelings can be deceptive for sure! That is why whether it feels good or whether it feels bad, you have to search your heart because this situation may be an important lesson for you. This lesson may even have bitter consequences. Face them. You know in your heart you must. And if you miss the lesson because you choose another route then you will see it again and again until you conquer it. Fight it all you want, the lesson will return. Looking in your heart brings you truth always and facing that truth moves you forward at a speed you will not believe.

Examine your conscience daily at the end of your day and see for yourself your strengths and weaknesses. Examine your heart constantly and you will begin to see yourself in others and you will identify with people instead of seeing them as so separate from you or their ideas so foreign to you. People have needs just like you. They are people not aliens. They may not be looking in their heart. Does that mean you dont either? No, it means you must all the more. Do this and you will start to know and understand people better. Your relationships will improve and your capacity to love will increase and you will succeed in overcoming your negative self that seeks only to serve yourself, only to look out for yourself, only to give to yourself – constantly anxious about whether you are getting your due and whether you are being recognized. That negative self feeds anger and does not let go and the more you do not let go the more the negativity overtakes you. It takes effort. It takes grand effort all the time many times a day to step out of the darkness.

Do not be afraid. Be courageous. The heart of man contains universal truths that we all know. Those truths bind us together and the most important truth is that love conquers all. Sending love out in the world, loving yourself, loving others in spite of themselves will do wonders for your ways of dealing with conflict, stress, failure, accomplishments, and more.

In our mediation/facilitation practice we direct people to the underlying issues that live in their hearts. We bring these issues to the forefront in order to help people transcend issues that polarize or lock them too tightly into a position. By unlocking the heart, we help open the person to hearing the other and understanding the needs of the other. This in turn allows compromise to occur. Once you can empathize with another and you can really listen to them without being encumbered by your own needs, they lose the “enemy” status and you begin to feel for them and often even come to understand and identify with in a way that allows you to want to reach compromise.

…And I thought Cary and I were the new faces of mediation. Guess not. There is one beautiful face coming to television as a mediator. Her name is Sarah Shahi and Sarah will play Kate Reed, ‘a top litigator who, frustrated with the bureaucracy and injustice she witnesses in legal system, decides to become the ultimate anti-lawyer: a mediator.’ She will resolve all kinds of conflicts from business disputes to divorces. Read more about Sarah Shahi here. Hmmm…I had the EXACT same thoughts ‘cept no one offered me a television show…at least…not yet.
Laws were made by people, and people are often wrong.” That’s the mantra for Sarah Shahi’s titular character in USA’s new legal drama, Facing Kate. (oops, name change has already occurred, to Fairly Legal). The show, executive produced by Michael Sardo and Steve Sark, focuses on the world of lawyers who, like Kate, resign from practicing law and simply mediate clients’ disagreements. “Mediation is exploding in this country, exploding all over the world,” Sardo said Friday at the Television Critics Association fall TV preview. “Kate is someone who rebels against the one-size-fits-all mentality of the law.”
I pray everyday that my flaws make me interesting and don’t drive business away! At any rate, if executive producer Michael Sardo says mediation is exploding worldwide, that is good news for Sanchez and Baietto. All kidding aside, mediation is an awesome concept for so many reasons and on so many levels. I hope, at the very least, apart from the artificial glamour, beautiful people, and too- perfect scenarios, this show will get people to think about the concept in their own lives. The economy is ripe for the takeover of a cost-effective way to handle disputes and our culture is ripe for people learning skills to handle conflict with eachother. Haven’t we had enough hate and anger infiltrating everything from elections to our morals to our relationships. We need eachother. We can have win/win situations. We have to care about eachother to want a “win” for the other so they will care enough about us to fight for the “win” for us.
Good luck Ms. Shahi and good luck Mediation!

I stumbled across this site out of the University of California Berkley, and consider it a wonderful resource for understanding conflict management. There is a great article, a free downloadable book for Mediators, audio seminars on Empathic Listening Skills and Negotiation Skills and Mediation Research. Take a look and enjoy!

The prayer of St. Francis of Assisi has always been inspiring to me and always brings tears to my eyes. It states: Oh Master grant that I may never seek so much to be consoled as to console – to be understood as to understand- to be loved as to love with all my soul!!! Wow. That is hard to do especially when your own needs are not being met, the other person is just not nice, and you definitely need love. Maybe that’s where my tears come from – the difficulty of it all. I often think of the Mary, Christ’s Mother, knowing her son is being crucified, humiliated, scourged and made fun of. Was she receiving divine assistance to help her though that? What sort of darkness was she in where her faith had to stand firm. And Christ, for that matter, dying on a cross, calling out to His Father, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachtani! My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? What kind of darkness was He in at that moment. What kind of faith did He have?

We need to have faith too in our times of darkness. Where we see no hope, we need the faith to console rather than be consoled, to love rather than be loved and to understand rather than be understood. I say we need the faith because, I think, if we have it, we then get love, consolation and understanding from God through His Son, Jesus. If you don’t have it and can still practice these virtues at the most difficult times because of your loving heart – more power to you!

Interestingly enough, St. Francis’ prayer outlined above is also the basis of good communication skills outlined in a nice article regarding conflict management skills out of the University of California Berkley.

“Two principles have contributed greatly to the productive handling of disagreements. The first, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood,” was introduced by Steven Covey, in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.1 If we encourage others to explain their side first, they will be more apt to listen to ours.”

We live in a time where divorce is prevalent. People are suffering as a result of their divorce. That is because despite the fact that the divorce rate is high, people enter into marriages believing in their marriage and when it doesn’t work, and especially when their are children involved, both parties suffer. I reiterate that both parties suffer. Handling divorce cases I had a first hand look at parties in action. Sure on the surface there is anger, frustration, greed, spite, and a host of other emotions covering up the pain but it was always clear as day that both parties were suffering as a result of the union breaking. One may be suffering more, but both parties suffer.

Part of that suffering comes from unhealed pain and despair. This sends people down the road of self destruction which can lead to all types of behavior against oneself or the other party involved. Most people do not know what to do with that pain and despair. Most cannot comprehend internally the reality of breaking up and what our system has in place for divorce and for the children of divorce. Separating stuff, time-sharing, breaking it all apart- no matter how much we intellectualize it with the process – both parties have nowhere to go with their pain about the breakup and about what they internalized as a sacred union and its offspring that they become paralyzed and then destructive. They see no mercy anywhere. They see no healing anywhere. They just see a process. Their soul is left unattended.

In speaking about their problems with others what often happens is a demonization process of the other. People tend to take sides, react emotionally to behavior of one or the other party that they deem to be negative and/or hurtful and become judges and arbiters of this family. That is not love. That is not helpful. That contributes to splintering this family further and where there are children involved who will have contact with both parents on a continuing basis, this kind of behavior adds to the heaping despair and suffering going on in the children. So others who know parties to a divorce should not do these kinds of things. They should stick up for the family as a whole. Encourage love and, where there is Faith, a turning to Christ for the family.

To me, the divorce process is just a formal demonization of the other. Attorneys coming in to the process take sides and elevate the negatives of the other except now it is happening in a public way. Others know your scandal, your shortcomings, the venom is on full display. The sacredness of the union and its offspring is now being degraded in public and shredded and then clumsily and artificially forced together after the process adds to the despair and suffering of all involved. Undoing that kind of trauma for all involved, especially the children, well, I think there are plenty of statistics already out there speaking to the effects of divorce on children and the family.

Perhaps some of you can find within your own conscience the strength to love harder when the urge to separate comes to your marriage. Or you can find in your conscience the right amount of love to hand out when divorce is happening. Maybe you know what to do with that despair and trauma through the struggle and suffering within marriage and/or when a divorce is happening. Perhaps counseling is your answer or the comfort of friends or an acceptance. Whatever it is, looking to your conscience is the best tool to push you through suffering times and divorce. The conscience we all share does know right from wrong and will steer you in love far better than the intellect which can rationalize away love, hope, forgiveness, and peace.

For others, who believe in God, I beg all of you to turn to His Son at times of struggle in your marriage and in times of divorce. He is your Hope! Attach yourself to Him and ask for His graces and love for your family. You can find peace while you suffer. You can know mercy while you suffer. You can trust Him to transform your marriage or to carry you through the divorce.

Having a relationship with Him will change everything. Too many people say they believe but they don’t trust Him with anything. They just trust themselves. Do not wallow and spin in yourself. Do not think His Church’s rules do not fit you or you are no longer good enough. He is coming after you – the lost sheep! He is leaving all His other sheep to find YOU. Let Him find you. Bring your circumstances to Him and allow Him to mold your circumstances to Himself. He will love you however things play out. Trust that and ask for His wisdom in your actions and He will provide it. Not a wisdom that the earth knows but a wisdom of a higher order and an entirely different quality.

“But the wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without inconsistency or insincerity. “

James, Chapter 3 V17-18.

Remember the death of Christ on the cross is an absurdity to those who do not understand the way of the cross. Redemption can come through the suffering. Do not be afraid to suffer it out attached to Him. You will find peace in your struggle. You will find love. You probably will not find your own way and you probably will not find your own will. You must be open to His way. But ultimately you will find full and final relief from your despair – real resolution that allows you to go on, in love, not in bitterness with a peace that surpasses all understanding.

This post comes through much prayer to Christ and experience in the legal field and experience in a long-term marriage replete with its own issues. Additionally, inspiration comes from the “Heaven Speaks to” booklets as given to Anne, a lay apostle. These books have been printed with the permission of the Most Reverend Leo O’Reilly, Bishop of Kilmore, Ireland and are currently with the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for formal examination. It is only because Anne has submitted her mind and heart to final and definitive judgment of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church and the local Bishop regarding the supernatural character of these messages that I direct you to them in this post.

I have lots of spiritual books in the drawer next to my bed but one that I return to time and time again is the autobiography of St. Theresa of Lisieux – better known as “the Little Flower.” Today, October 1st, is her feast day! One of the reasons this book strikes so deep a chord with me is because Therese never does anything so great to be recognized or rewarded during her lifetime. In fact, her life is one of obscurity cloistered away in the Carmelite House of Nuns. But yet her day to day life is riveting in the sense that she takes every opportunity from the minute she wakes up till the time she goes to sleep to bend her will to Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is amazing how conscious she is minute by minute in her day of serving Christ. Whether she is praying next to a nun who is making weird sounds, to being assigned a job she despises, to being forced to be with someone who despises her, Therese lives in that moment, suppresses her own will, seeks out the Lord’s will and executes with his grace. By doing so, she turns those annoyances, problems, and anxieties into gifts of love that bring her a peace she would have never had otherwise as well as gives her Lord the love He so needs and desires from all of us.

It doesn’t matter how many times I read her story, I always put that book down inspired with love for my God and my fellow man and, of course, St. Therese. It amazes me time and again the power of this powerless young girl. To me, her inner devotion and love for Christ stands so tall and speaks so loud it draws me in and gives me courage to know that the more I rely on Christ and offer Him my whole self not only every day, but every minute of every day, the more He space He will take up inside my heart and emanate through me as He did and does through Therese.

Interestingly enough, often Therese’s sisters would not understand her. Just as Christ was and is so misunderstood, Therese’s actions were often interpreted as weakness, her illness seen as fraudulent and her thoughts sometimes seen as idiocy. Through it all, she kept her focus on her gifts of love to Christ. She sought only to give Christ what she considered morsels of love, the tiniest of offerings. Christ returned so many graces to Therese in exchange for her whole hearted offerings that we must know and understand that every time we turn to Christ in even the smallest of life’s problems, He will reward us. In so doing, He shows us that it is in the routine of life that we can spiritually grow. If we can come to understand that those we walk with daily, those given to us by our Lord, can be the source of our salvation, we will start to live a new found love in the daily monotony of our lives and so show Christ the love and worship and place in our lives that He deserves.

Father Steve Grunow from the Word on Fire Blog offers his insight below: